Sometimes, as those of you who follow us know, aside from our educational posts we love to share truly inspirational stories and work from our wonderful industry.
So, without further ado, we thought you’d love to read this, all about how Adorn Wedding Invitations created Vanessa Williams’ perfect wedding invitations last year. Over to you…..
Designing a Love Story – Vanessa Williams 14k Gold Wedding Invitations
When global celebrity – Vanessa Williams approached Adorn Wedding Invitations with designing her Egyptian themed wedding invitations, the design team couldn’t wait to brainstorm an invitation that would artistically and beautifully embody Vanessa and her partner’s enchanting and tangled love story. After an epic three-month journey of design and production work, the team crafted something which was an exquisite representation of the couple’s unique past.
We sit down with the creative director and head designer of the project to find out some insider tips on how an invitation can be designed to best represent a love story from the colours, fabrics and motifs used……
A Captivating Love Story
Looking out across the blanket blue river with her daughter, three continents from home, Vanessa was blissfully unaware that she was soon to fall in love with an American accountant, named Jim Skrip who was aboard the same cruise ship.
Jim and Vanessa met in a moment of pure serendipity and quickly came to realize that they were both from the same place – New York State.
Amongst the gorgeous backdrop of the Egyptian landscape, Jim and Vanessa found love and each other. This sacred memory has stayed with Vanessa and Jim ever since, serving as major inspiration for our team.
Vanessa and Jim needed a company that would be able to capture the unique essence of their relationship, and a company that would also mirror the luxury of their ceremony and honestly, we felt like our company was the best choice for this! Our designers are the absolute epitome of hopeless romantics! Although capturing the magic of this story was definitely no easy feat for our design team, we were completely fueled by the romance of Vanessa and Jim’s love.
Drawing on the couples Egyptian love story, we worked for months to craft elements that embodied their romance:
The Colours of Romance and Egypt
The chosen colour that would grace the invitation and matching accessories was Pantone’s colour of the year – Marsala. With deep, earthy and exotic tones, the colour beautifully emulates the passion and romance that Vanessa and Jim found in each other, and after some solid research – we also discovered that this colour was dotted across the banks of the Nile in the delicate flora where the couple was cruising!
We also chose shimmering golden highlights to contrast and glisten against the rich backdrop of Marsala, beautifully mirroring the Egyptian environment of where the couple first met, the gold was utilised in the foiled lettering and encasing.
It’s all in the details
Perhaps the most extravagant element of the design (and our personal favourite), the 14-carat gold lotus flower acted as a signature of the invitation collection. During the research process, we found out that the flower was actually engraved onto the inside of Vanessa’s ring that was given to her from Jim.
The flower is an archetypal symbol in Egyptian culture and represents purity and new spiritual awakening. Beginning life at the depths of murky waters and rising to the surface as a brave and beautiful new life, we thought there was no better symbol for Vanessa and Jim who overcame so much adversity in failed relationships, to eventually find each other.
Sealed with a wax stamp and personalised logo, the luxurious invitations were finally complete, capturing the magic of Vanessa and Jim’s love beautifully.
Vanessa and Jim married last year on the fourth of July, and described the invitations as “a huge hit with [their] guests” and our team couldn’t be more thrilled with the outcome.
Thank you so much for sharing this story with us here at ternevents.
If you’d like to see exactly how the process worked, please watch Adorn Wedding Invitations‘ video…
Photo & Video Credits: On Three Photography